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The Little 



BY MISS M. E. BRADDON. 


There was hardly anything talked about in the clubs and the 
coffee-houses that November of 1751, but the approaching mar- 
riage of Miss Sarah Pawlett, and Lord Bellenden. My lord was 
one of the finest gentlemen in England, a statesman and a 
diplomatist, a man of great learning, eight-and-thirty years of 
age, honored and favored at court, on terms of friendly intimacy 
at Strawberry Hill and at Marble Hill, where Lady Suffolk 
swore he was the one honest man in his majesty’s dominions. 
He was owner of a splendid estate in Hertfordshire, and a fine 
house in St. James’ Park ; he had a castle in Ireland, and a deei 
forest in North Britain. In a word, he was the best match in 
all London. 

Had the beautiful Sarah been about to maiTy some lordling of 
the fribble and fop tribe, instead of this splendid gentleman, the 
town would doubtless have had a good deal to say about her 
promotion; for it is notan every-day incident for an actress to 
be raised to the peerage; albeit Polly, after her period of proba- 
tion, had not so long ago been made Duchess of Bolton, but for 
the Covent Garden actress to carry off the finest gentleman in 
London was another matter, and folks were greatly amazed at 
her high fortune. She herself bore her success calmly, was said 
indeed to have a somewhat melancholy air when she showed 
herself in her coach in the park, or attended a fashionable auc- 
tion to bid for some old delf jar or Indian monster. But a pen- 
sive air best became that statuesque loveliness of hers, and 
rollicking and blithsome as she was in a comedy part, she had 
ever in society the look of a tearless Niobe, pale as marble, and 
with large violet eyes full of strange pathos. 

“ She had not always that doleful air,” said Little Tom Squatt, 
the critic, an early admirer of Sarah’s; “I remember the 
time when she was as gay as a bird — ready to jump over the 
moon — and that was when she was not always sure of her din- 
ner.” 

“ Ay, that was before she took the town,” said another liter- 
ary gentleman, at the Little Hell Fire Club, a room over a tav- 
ern in Covent Garden, wnere a choice circle of garreteers and 



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THE LITTLE WOMAN IN BLACK. 


3 


hireling wits met every night after the play. “ Success sobers 
’em all. They begin to think of saving money, and turn relig- 
ious. Besides, that was before she fell in love with Ned Lang- 
ley.” 

At this there was much head-shaking and elevation of eye- 
brows in the little assembly, and divers pinches of snuff were 
taken with an air and a shoulder-shrug, as who should say. 
We could, and if we would, and so on. Yet scandal had hardly 
breathed its venom over the young actress’ fair fame. She had 
never left the wing of the old half -pay major, her father, who 
had fought with King George at Dettingen, and who was punc- 
tiliousness itself upon all points of honor; and she was known to 
have supported a crew of younger sisters, down-at-heel slat- 
terns, with pretty faces and tousled heads, out of her earnings 
as an actress. 

True! But she was also known to have been for at least one 
brief season— the girl’s dream-land time— over head and ears in 
love with handsome Ned liangley. Langley the irresistible, the 
beau-ideal lover and reprobate of the dear old reprobate-drama, 
the Wildair, the Lovelace, the Mirabel, the Ranger of the stage; 
polished, elegant, supple, villainous, bewitching. 

Ned could hardly help carrying some of his comedy character- 
istics into real life. The town would not have had him other- 
wise. Society began by giving him his diabolical reputation, 
and poor Ned had to live up to it. He must be Don Juan or 
nothing. His fashion would have waned into a season had it 
been hinted that he lived soberly and had ceased to intrigue with 
women of quality. In dress, and manner, and morals, he must 
needs be as the heroes of Wych/^rley and Vanburgh, if he 
would keep his vogue. And Ned was vain, and loved to be the 
fashion; and he deemed it his first duty to himself and society 
to ruin the peace of any beautiful woman who came within his 
ken. 

Sarah Pawlett came into Covent Garden Theater, innocent, 
fresh, warm-hearted, pure-minded, pious even, in an age when 
unbelief w^as the last fashion. She came from the humble train- 
ing in booths and barns, and queer little provincial theaters, and 
took the town by storm. Her beauty, her youth, her buoyancy, 
came upon the jaded London play -goer as a surprise. It was 
long since so bright and spontaneous a being had flashed and 
sparkled on those boards. She seemed the very spirit of 
comedy; and to see her act a love scene— half sentiment, half 
mockery — with Ned Langley, was to see the very perfection of 
acting. 

The town flocked to hear these two interchange the joyous 
banter of Wycherley or Congreve, charmed with their sparkle 
and fire, theii’ dash and exuberance. 

Of course, stage-lovers so delightful must be lovers off the 
stage and in earnest. The tumultuous love scenes of that broad, 
bright comedy must find their counterpart off the stage in a 
deeper and more fatal love. 

For once in a way the audience were right in their guesswork. 


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THE LITTLE WOMAN IN BLACK. 


5 


Those stage-lovers had not wooed and bantered each other in 
the shine of the oil lamps for half a year before they had fallen 
deeper in love than ever Wycherley or Congreve dreamed of in 
their gamut of passion. She gave up heart and soul to the gal- 
lant lover, surrendered her young, fresh lips to his stage-kisses, 
melted in his arms, heart beating against heart, sweetest eyes 
lifted confidingly to his, while the audience applauded and cried, 
“How exquisite, how natural!” 

She was to bd his wife. No shadow of any other thought had 
ever crossed the unsullied surface of her mind. As yet there 
had been no word spoken of marriage. They two had been but 
seldom alone together. The old major was at his post behind 
the scenes every night, and carried his daughter off to their 
lodgings in Holborn directly after the performance. He at- 
tended rehearsals, took snuff with the actors and actresses, and 
bored them exceedingly with his prosy old stories of Dettingen, 
or the forty-five. He had been stationed at Derby when the 
young pretender turned back with his rabble army. He was 
Hanoverian to the marrow. 

No, there had been no word of marriage. The wooing had 
been all stage-wooing — tender embraces, eyes entangling them- 
selves in eyes, swooning sighs, impassioned kisses, hearts beat- 
ing to suffocation, but all stage-play. If the major complained 
that these love-scenes were too natural, the town was enrapt- 
ured, and greeted those two young lovers as if the pair had 
made but one perfect whole. Applause given to her was sweet- 
est laudation for him. He looked down at her fondly, proudly, 
as they stood hand in hand at the fall of the curtain. He was 
much more experienced in stagecraft than she; and it may be 
that he fancied he had taught her to act. Those who know 
genius when they see it, knew that with her acting was as the 
gift of song to the bird, God-given, spontaneous. 

After that first half year of stage-courtship there came a time 
when little hints and faint breathings of venom began to be 
heard in the side-scenes and the green-room; slirugs, innuendoes, 
a suggestion that the prosy old major was being hoodwinked by 
those fiery spirits; that the lovely girl who walked off to her 
dingy lodgings so meekly every midnight, muffled and hooded, 
and clinging to the father’s arm, had begun to be experienced 
in the ruses by which ladies of quality overreach a tyrannical 

f )arent or a jealous husband; that the frank smile and the sj^ark- 
ing eye now served to mask a secret. 

“ Why don’t they marry ?” asked the comic old man. ^ 

“ The old major would never consent to throw away his clever, 
beautiful daughter upon an extravagant wretch like Langley,” 
answered the lady who played the heavy mothers. “ Why, her 
salary has to keep the whole family — yes, feed and clothe all 
those hulking sisters, and find the old man in grog. She is the 
milch-cow, and if she were to marry Langley they must all 
starve.” 

“ If Ned were a man of spirit, he would run away with her,” 
said the actor; “ or get himself spliced by one of your Mayfair 
parsons.” 


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THE LITTLE WOMAN IN BLACK. 


7 


“ Ned has too many strings to his bow,” answered the lady, 
with her tragic air; “ half the women of quality in London are 
in love with him. He has the ton aX his beck and call. Ned 
would be a fool to marry.” 

“ Not to marry Sarah Pawlett, my good soul! That girl is a 
fortune in herself. She is a genius, madam, a genius. Ned must 
be a man of snow if he can resist such charms, such graces. 
When she comes on the stage it is like the sun breaking 
through a cloud. The whole scene — nay, the whole theater, 
brightens.” 

But time went on, and there was no hint of marriage between 
those ideal lovers. The old major was laid up with gout, and 
unable to haunt the side scenes as of old; but he was represented 
by a duenna of Irish extraction — an old servant who had nursed 
all the tousle-haired girls, including Sarah herself. This dragon 
was of a mild nature, and the lovers enjoyed each other’s society 
very freely while the demon Podagra laid the old soldier by the 
heels. They seemed to move in a paradise of their own, regard- 
less of those around them, thoughtless of the morrow, forgetful 
of yesterday, infinitely happy in the present hour. 

Their careless joy gave occasion for more shoulder-shrugging 
among their worldly-wise comrades. There were some who 
gave the lovely Sally over for lost, some who denounced the 
handsome Ned as an arrant scoundrel — behind his back, mark 
you; but i^this beautiful butterfly creature were hovering on 
the brink of a precipice, there was no hand stretched forth to 
hold her back from the abyss. 

Suddenly the stream of gossip was turned into a new channel, 
and the only talk of wings and greenioom, club and coffee- 
house, was of the wonderful conquest Sarah Pawlett had made 
in my Lord Bellenden — no light-minded haunter of play-houses 
and French taverns, but one of the magnates of the land, a 
gentleman of the purest water, a gem without a flaw, white and 
perfect as the regent’s diamond. While Ned Langley had 
trifled and fooled, this most estimable gentleman had stooped 
from his high estate to make the actress an honorable offer of 
marriage. 

Old Major Pawlett was on his legs again by the time this hap- 
pened. His gout had fled before the magic wand of supreme- 
good luck. He proudly accepted his lordship’s generous offer; 
The girl was but a child — not nineteen until next April — and she 
had all a child’s waywardness. Yet she could not be otherwise 
than deeply gratefu'l, moved and melted to her heart’s core by 
his lordship’s generosity. 

The girl herself said nothing of gratitude, or any other feel- 
ing. She stood up in the midst of the sordid lodging, thin and 
straight and pale, like a tall white lily, and allowed herself to 
be given away to this stately nobleman as if she had been a 
chattel. 

He looked down at her with his grave, grand face, smiling 
calmly; confident in his power to hold that which he won, 
strong in past triumphs over the hearts of women^ strong in the 


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S. T. TAYLOll, 030 Broadway, New York 


THE LITTLE WOMAN IN BLACK. 


9 


consciousness of liis own worth. He put a diamond hoop on 
the third finger of the cold, unresisting liand— so cofld, albeit so 
yielding. 

“ Let our wedding-bells sound as soon as may be, dear one," 
he said; “ we have nothing to wait for." 

“Oh, not too soon, not too soon," she pleaded, piteously; 
“ your lordship is almost a stranger to me." 

“ Never again lordship, and not long a stranger," he answered, 
gently. 

He saw that look of anguish in the lovely face, and knew that 
her heart was not his; but he saw the pure and candid soul 
shining out of the sorrowful eyes; and he told himself that such 
a heart was worth winning. 

There was a painful scene between Sally and her old father as 
soon as the nobleman’s back was turned. The girl groveled at 
the major’s feet, vowed with passionate sobs that she would do 
anything for her father and her sisters, except this one thing 
that was wanted of her. 

She would work like a pack-horse. She would bring them 
every guinea she earned^ — she would wear an old grograin gown 
from year’s end to year’s end. She would live on bread and 
cheese. But the major upbraided her with basest ingratitude 
to him and to Providence — to Providence for having given her 
such a lover as Lord Bellenden, to her father for being clever 
enough to bring sucli a lover to honorable proposals. 

“ Do you suppose if I had been anything else than an offi- 
cer and a gentleman, and a man of the world to boot, his 
lordship would have offered you marriage ?’’ he demanded, in- 
dignantly. 

“ Nay," answered the girl, with a touch of pride tliat en- 
nobled her — pride in the man who loved her, albeit she could 
not return his love, “ his lordship is a man of honor, and would 
not have made dishonorable proposals to the lowliest orphan in 
the land. He is like King Cophetua in the old ballad." 

“ I wonder you have the impudence to praise him after the 
fuss you have been making," said the old man, angrily; and he 
emphasized his speech with sundry forcible epithets common to 
the conversation of military men in those days. 

He watched liis daughter like a lynx that night at the theater. 
Not a w^ord could Ned Langley and she say to each other in tlie 
greenroom or at the side-scenes; but there was one opportunity 
on the stage when they two w^ere standing together at the back 
of the scene, while the low comedian and the comic old w^oman 
were fooling in front of the footlights. 

She told him what had -happened, clasping his hands in hers, 
looking up at him with divine love and confidence. 

“ You must marry me, and quickly, too," she said. “ There is 
no other way out of it. If you don’t, I shall be married to Lord 
Bellenden, willy-nilly. My father’s heart is set upon it, and all 
the girls were in tears this afternoon beseeching me. If you 
love me, Ned, as you have sworn you do, ah! so often — so often, 
you must make me your wife without a day’s delay." 


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THE LITTLE WOMAN IN BLACK. 11 

He looked at lier with passionate earnestness, betwixt love 
and pain. 

“ My dearest, it can’t be,” he said, “ it can’t be.” 

“ But why not?” 

“ Don’t ask me, love; it can’t be — and only reflect, sweet one, 
what a chance you are throwing away. Such a match as Lord 
Bellenden is not offered to an actress twice in a century. You 
would be doing better than either of those Gunning girls, about 
whom we have all heard so much — and indeed you are hand- 
somer than either; and what” — he whispered in her ear, draw- 
ing close to her as the serpent to Eve — “ what is to prevent us 
loving each other till the end of our days, even if you are Lady 
Bellenden ?” 

Her hands grew cold as death, and she wrenched them from 
his, as she would have snatched them out of a fiery furnace, 
She recoiled from him, and stood apart from him for the rest of 
the scene, neither looking at him nor speaking to him, save when 
the business of the stage compelled her. 

Three days afterward Ned Langley went over to the enemy, 
accepted an engagement at the rival house, and the manager 
was left in despair. 

“ What the plague am I to do?” he asked piteously, with his 
wig pushed on one side from sheer vexation. “There is no 
comedian like him in London — not in the world, perhaps— id 
spite of their talk of those frog-eating jackanapes in the Rue St, 
Honore.” 

“Play tragedy,” said Sarah; “and then you won’t miss him. 
You have Mr. Deloraine, who took the town in Romeo. I aui 
dying to act tragedy.” 

“What, you, Mrs. Madcap? Do you think that you, who 
have kept the town laughing so long, will ever set them cry* 
ing ?” 

“ Try me,” she answered, fixing him with those beautiful eyes 
of hers, so large, so limpid in their exquisite azure. “ I can cry 
myself, mark you, sir, and that's half the battle.” 

She stood a little way from him, threw her head slightly back- 
ward, and lifted up her eyes to heaven in a Carlo Dolci attitude. 
Slowly, gradually, the beautiful eyes filled and slowly overflowed, 
Pearly drops chased each other down the delicate cheeks; not a 
contortion disfigured the chiseled features; no flush disturbed 
the pure pallor of that ivory skin. 

“Yes, you will do it,” cried the manager. “What a face to 
preludo Juliet’s potion scene, when mother and nurse have left 
her, and she stands alone, like Niobe, fixed in despair. Yes, you 
shall play Juliet next week. Deloraine is at his best in Romeo, 
and at forty looks an admirable twenty-five.” 

The manager kept his word, and Mistress Sarah's Juliet was 
the mode for a month. Tlie town was all agog about her mat- 
rimonial engagement, and flocked to see her act with ever in- 
creasing fervor. She had refused to leave the stage till the eve 
of her wedding; refused with a charming female obstinacy 
which delighted her lover, though he would have had it others 






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1 V ^ ^ 




THE LITTLE WOMAN IN BLACK. 


13 


wise. A man so deep in love is all the more smitten by having 
his every wish denied. Sarah was the coyest, proudest, most 
tormenting of mistresses; and there was that shadow of sadness 
which came and went like the clouds that drift across the moon 
on a windy autumn night, and only made her more beautiful. 

Mr. Deloraine was plain and pock-marked, and lacked all the 
graces of handsome Ned Langley ; but he contrived to make him- 
self handsome on the stage, by the aid of white lead and ceruse, 
and he was a highly respectable gentleman, who paid his way 
and went to church on Sundays. He had a dull wife and eleven 
children, so Lord Bellenden had no cause for jealousy about this 
Romeo, even when he saw Juliet in his arms at the passionate 
hour of parting, what time the lark caroled above the olive woods 
beyond Verona. 

Little by little — by infinitesimal stages of days and hours Sarah 
learned, first to honor, and then to love her noble wooer. He 
was a man worthy to be loved — generous, chivalrous as that 
lover in the old ballads which Sarah knew by heart — nobler than 
the ideal of her girlish dreams. She surrendered her heart to him 
almost unwillingly, deeming herself unworthy to be loved by 
him, unworthy even to love him; but she could not withhold her 
love. He had commanded lier affection, as he had first com- 
manded her respect. 

She loved him, and in a few weeks she was to be married to 
him. The most fashionable mantua-maker at the West End was 
busy with her gowns and falballas; the Bellenden diamonds were 
being remounted for lier; a chariot of the newest shape and style 
was being built for her, and ladies of the highest ton stood up in 
their carriages to stare at her as she drove through the park 
with her father. 

With all this she was not happy, and she had more than one 
reason for her unhappiness. First, there was the thought of Ned 
Langley’s treachery and the love slie had wasted upon him. 
This rankled like a green wound. Then there was the stinging 
memory of certain girlish, half-mad letters she had written to 
him when she had believed him noble as a Greek god. Thirdly, 
there was the haunting presence of a little woman in black, who 
dogged her in the street by day, now following her, now lurking 
at corners to watch her, and who sat on the same bench, in the 
same spot — third from the end near the door on the prompt side, 
in the second row of the pit — every night. 

At first Sarah had been interested, amused, flattered by the 
lady’s constant attendance. She had pointed her out to Ned 
Langley, solitary, silent, intent upon the play — evidently a friend- 
less creature, alone in the desert of the town, with no amusement 
but the playhouse. 

“She looks a poor, little shabby-genteel creature, but a lady 
all the same,” Sarah had said to Langley, “ and how she watches 
you and me, and hangs upon every word we utter. I am quite 
taken with the poor, harmless soul. I wish you would find out 
who she is.” 

“Impossible, child! a stranger from the country, most likely, 


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THE LITTLE WOMAN IN BLACK. 


15 


A. waif thrown np by the ocean of change — a widow who has lost 
her fortune and her husband, and has come to London to seek 
new ones,” 

On another occasion, when Sarah talked of the little woman 
in black, Ned had a vexed air. 

“ I believe she is a political spy,” he said; “ the government is 
still suspicious of dealings with the Pretender, and has all sorts 
of agents.” 

And now, when she and Ned Langley were strangers forever 
more, Sarah found herself watched more closely than ever by 
the little woman in shabby black— a pale, sharp-featured little 
woman, who might, perchance, have been pretty in girlhood, 
but who had lost all her beauty at five-and-thirty, which was 
about the age Sarah gave her. She had a restless, lynx-eyed 
look, as of one who had worn herself out with watching other 
people. 

One night that the major had stayed late at a convivial party, 
Sarah, walking home with her maid, was overtaken by a pair 
of lightly tripping feet in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and startled by 
the tap of a little hand on her shoulder. 

She turned and fronted the little woman in black, whose pale, 
pinched face seemed ghostly in the dim light of the oil-lamp 
overhead. They had just turned the corner by his Grace of 
Newcastle’s big stone mansion, 

“ What do you want, woman?” asked Sarah, haughtily. 

“ Five minutes’ conversation with you, madam; and it is for 
your welfare that you should grant me the interview.” 

“You can fall a little in the rear, Margaret,” said Sarah 
to the old servant. “ This lady wishes to talk with me in pri- 
vate.” 

The Irishwoman looked doubtful, and fell back only a few 
paces. The woman in black seemed too small a person to be 
dangerous. Her head hardly reached the queenly Sarah’s shoul- 
der. 

“ You are going to make a great match, madam,” said the 
stranger; “ all the town is full of your good fortune.” 

“ I hope you have not stopped me so solemnly in order to tell 
me that,” retorted the actress. “ I have noted you in the pit 
many an evening, madam, and as you seem an admirer of the 
drama I should be sorry to deem you crazy.” 

“No, madam, I am not crazy, though I have had more than 
enough to make me so. A father’s anger, ay, and the loss of 
every friend I had in youth, a fortune forfeited, and, for a crown- 
ing misery, an unfaithful husband — yes, unfaithful — though it 
was for him I sacrificed father and fortune, friends and position. 
I was the only daughter of a bishop, madam, and kept the best 
company before I was married.” 

“ Those facts are interesting, madam, to yourself or your per- 
sonal friends, but hardly so to me. I wish you good-night,” said 
Sarah, hastily, assured that the lady was a lunatic. But the lit- 
tle woman pressed upon her steps. 

“I shall find means to awaken your interest presently, 


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THE LITTLE WOMAN LN BLACK. 


17 


madam,” she said. “ You are about to be married to the best 
matcli in London, as I was saying, and your fortune is to be 
fen vied by all your sex. I have heard wagers in the pit as to 
whether the marriage would or would not come off.” 

“ The people who made such wagers were monstrously inso- 
lent.” 

“ No doubt, madam; but insolence is the order of the day. 
Now, I myself would not mind wagering that your engagement 
with Lord Bellenden would be off to-morrow if he knew as 
much as I do, and if he were favored with the perusal of certain 
letters which you wrote— and by the dozen — to handsome Ned 
Langley, your stage lover, madam, and your very earnest lover 
off the stage.” 

“ My letters!” cried Sarah, aghast. “ What do you know of 
my letters ?” 

She was utterly unskilled in deceit, unpracticed in denial, and 
admitted her folly as freely as a child would have done. 

“ What do I know of them ? They are my daily reading; they 
are my morning service. I know them by heart, madam. Yes, 
and I know of your meetings, too; your stolen kisses in the old 
house by the river — among the rats and the spiders, and the 
ghosts, madam — yes. the ghosts. You were scared by a ghost 
once, I think, when you and Ned were standing side by side in 
the twilight.” 

“ Yes,” cried Sarah, “there was a figure flitted by — noiseless 
— shadowy. It turned my blood to ice— a figure in black. It 
was you r 

She stood gazing at the little woman in the moonlight— so pale, 
so attenuated. Yes, that was the form which flitted past on the 
shadowy landing by ‘the open door of the room in which she and 
Ned were standing, hand clasped in hand, pouring out their tale 
of love. 

She had taken the little black figure for a visitant from the 
other world; and now she knew that it was even worse than a 
ghost — a woman, mad, or it might be, only jealous — a woman 
with a bitter, unscrupulous tongue bent on doing her mischief. 

This creature would betray her to her lord, whom she rever- 
enced, whom she loved. It was of Bellenden she thought as she 
faced her foe in a corner of the square by the turnstile, the moon 
shining down upon them, the shadows of the houses making 
great Wots of darkness here and there. 

She had done this foolish thing, she, Sarah Pawlett, whom 
Lord Bellenden deemed the purest of women. She had com- 
promised herself deeply for that false love of hers, consenting to 
stolen meetings in an old empty house by the river, between the 
Temple and Blackfriars, a house that had been in chancery for 
fifty years, and which was supposed to be haunted. Ned 
Langley had procured a key somehow; and here they had met 
with impunity between the morning rehearsals and the evening 
performance."^ When Sally was late in returning to the family 
dinner, or the family tea, she had but to say that the rehears^ 
had been longer than usual. 


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THE LITTLE WOMAN IN BLACK, 


19 


There had not been many such meetings, a dozen at most, and 
the rendezvous had been of a perfectly innocent character, but 
the mere fact of such secret stolen interviews would have been 
quite enough to compromise or to condemn Sarah in the opinion 
of such a man as Lord Bellenden. 

Her letters were full of allusions to these meetings; she had 
dwelt with all a girl’s romantic fondness upon the delight of 
being alone with her idol, of touching his soft silken locks, of 
looking up into his eyes. The letters were written with all the 
self-abandonment of a young heart — written to one who was to 
be the writer’s husband, who was her all in all, the beginning 
and end of her universe — written to one whom she would no 
more have suspected of falsehood or meanness than she would 
have doubted the purity of the blue ether far away above the 
common earth, in a region where defilement cometh not. She 
had not asked for the return of her letters, for until that never- 
to-be-forgotten night when she had told Ned Langley that the 
time had come for their marriage she had lived in the assurance 
that she was to be his wife. He had not definitely spoken of 
their union, but it had seemed to her a thing of course from the 
hour in which they confessed their love. What else had they 
to live for. either of them, but to love and wed ? — they who 
seemed made to be mated, like two flowers on one stem, turning 
to each other naturally as the wind of fate blew them. 

After that bitter moment in which her lover had revealed his 
worthlessness, Sarah had been too proud in her deep anger to 
approach him, or communicate with him in any form, even for 
the sake of regaining her letters. She had hardly thought of 
those letters, indeed; thinking of the whole love story as a chap- 
ter in her life that was closed forever; a vault sealed and secret, 
in which lay the corpse of her first passionate love. 

And now she was learning that there might be a second love, 
sweeter even than the first; graver, deeper, truer; less romantic, 
but more ennobling; she w-as learning this, and forgetting every- 
thing else when this new trouble came upon her. Those letters, 
those foolish, wildly sentimental letters, were in the'^keeping of 
this strange woman. 

“How came you by my letters, madam?” she asked, indig- 
nantly. “ Are you a thief ?” 

“No, madam. I am a much injured woman; and you ought 
to take it kindly that I have borne my wrongs so patiently, and 
not disgraced you in your theater, where you are like a queen. 
But stage queens have had mud thrown in their faces before 
to-day.” 

“ You disgrace me! you?” 

“ Yes, I, madam; Ned Langley’s wife.” 

“ Ned-- Langley’s— wife!” 

She repeated the words slowly, almost in a whisper. 

“Oh! he did not tell you that he was a married man, did he ? 
He never does. You are not the first he has deluded. He does 
worse than that, for he tells villainous lies about me; he tells 
his fellow-actors that the poor little crack-brained woman at 



2 i 6 E. 42(i Street, 


Bet. 3d and' 2d Avenues. 


« 








4 



THE LITTLE WOMAN IN BLACK. 


21 


his lodgings is not his wife, but his mistress — a young lady of 
quality whom he ran away with, and who has been a burden to 
him ever since. T/mfs what he tells his friends, madam; be- 
cause that story leaves him at liberty to make love to the last 
fashionable actress, and to promise her marriage. And I am 
fool enough to stay with him and to slave for him, knowing all 
this; to warm his slippers of a night before he comes home, and 
mix his grog for him, and bear with him when he staggers home 
drunk from his Hell Fire Club, and hear his boasts of women of 
ton who are over head and ears in love with him. It was one 
night when he was in liquor that I found the first of your letters 
in his pocket; and after that I watched him and picked them up 
everywhere. You’ve no notion how careless he is of such let- 
ters; and, madam, the women all write alike, and lovers get 
tired of so much honey. I’ve heard him say, ‘ More of their 
precious scribble.’ We wives have the best of it, perhaps, with 
such fellows; for, at least, we are behind the scenes, and we see 
them with their masks off.” 

“ And you have my letters — all of them ?” 

“ Three-and-twenty, madam. I doubt that’s all, for I ransack 
every corner in quest of such things. I know my gentleman’s 
ways!” 

“Will you give me them back to-night?” asked Sarah, 
eagerly. 

“ No, madam, neither to-night nor to-morrow. I will not give 
them back to Sarah Pawlett; I will only return them to Lady 
Bellenden. When you are his lordship’s wife, madam, the let- 
ters shall be yours.” 

“ I see,” said Sarah, gloomily; “it is the old story. I have 
heard of such things. You mean to keep the letters, and hold 
them over me as a continual threat after I am married. You will 
make me pay you to be silent about them.” 

“ Pay me! No, madam, I am not so base as that. I have no 
grudge against you. I cannot even blame your conduct, though 
it was somewhat imprudent. You are but one of many whom 
handsome Ned Langley has deluded. I am not a double-dealer. 
The letters shall be yours when you are Lady Bellenden. On 
your wedding-day, if you like.” 

“Why wait till then? Give me the letters to-morrow, and I 
shall be your grateful debtor for life. There is nothing in my 
power, as an honest woman, that I would not do for you.” 

“ You promise fair, madam, but I have my fancy. I will only 
surrender those letters to Lord Bellenden’s wife.” 

“ But you must have your price — you must want something of 
me.” 

“Well, perhaps I do. Yes, every man has his price, and I 
suppose every woman has hers, too. I shall tell you mine when 
I give you back your letters. On your wedding-day.” 

Sarah tried, even with tears, to argue the little woman in 
black out of this rigid determination. The three women — Irish 
Margaret in the rear — walked round Lincoln's Inn Fields twice 
in the moonlight, Sarah pleading— the little woman as firm as a 
rook, 


Tlie Criterion Library. 


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Address all communications to 

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THE UTTLE WOMAN IN BLACK, 


23 


** On your wedding-day, madam, and no sooner,” she said at 
parting; I shall be in the church, with the letters in my pocket, 
I wish you a very good- night.” 

She made a low courtesy, as ceremoniously as if she had been 
at Ranelagh, and tripped lightly off toward Clare Market; leav- 
ing Sarah and the maid to go on to Holborn together. 

After this midnight interview came a period of keenest anx- 
iety, nay, almost of mental torture, for Sarah Pawlett. Three 
weeks had yet to pass before she would be my Lady Bellenden. 
How she regretted her own persistency in having postponed the 
wedding — her obstinacy in having insisted upon acting until 
the eve of her marriage. She acted now in fear and trembling, 
expectant of some demonstration from the little woman in black. 
The little woman never missed a night in her accustomed seat 
in the second row of the pit. '' She had acquired a prescriptive 
right to that seat by her constant attendance, and by being 
always one of the first to enter the theater. Regular pit-goers 
knew her by sight, and gave way to her — a dramatic enthusiast, 
doubtless, a little distraught, but harmless. 

Sarah’s first look when she came on thQ stage was to that seat 
in the pit. 

She acted the potion scene in Juliet with her eyes fixed on the 
little woman in black, fixed as if she had been face to face with 
Nemesis. It was a wonderful expression; people remembered 
it, and quoted it a quarter of a century afterward as a marvel of 
art and high-wrought feeling. 

Driving with Lord Bellenden in the park, or attending a fash- 
ionable auction with him, or at an afternoon water-party, Sarah 
was tortured by the expectation of the same haunting presence. 
The little woman seemed ubiquitous. Small, active, insignifi- 
cant, neatly dressed, and with ladylike manners, she was able 
to push herself in anywhere. She tripped about auction-rooms 
and looked at china monsters. She had her seat in the park, 
as she had in the pit. She might even be seen on the river, alone 
with her waterman, shooting about among the crowded wher- 
ries and gayly-clad people — a creature of no more significance 
than a blot of ink on a gaudy-flowered wall. 

Sarah was always dreading an explosion; and her future hus- 
band was so devoted to her, so chivalrous, so true. His love 
lifted her to a calm heaven of proud contentment. To be be- 
loved by him was to enter into a state of tranquil blessedness; 
just as she had pictured to herself the condition of the elect in 
the world to come. 

Sometimes she had a mind to fall at his feet and confess every- 
thing; her romantic passion for Ned Langley, and the way she 
had been fooled by him — even their secret meeting in the de- 
serted house — yes, she would have confessed all that, she would 
have endured the shame of it; but the idea that those letters of 
hers, written in all the intoxication of a first love, should be 
read in cold blood, read by a man of cultivated mind — those 
foolish, rambling sentences and reiterations, the poor little stock 
of words so repeated and misused, and, worst of all, the bad 





THE LITn.E WOMAN IN BLACK. 


25 


spelling. Yes; Sarah had been educating herself severely since 
her engagement to Lord Bellenden. and in the course of her 
studies had discovered how sorely she had erred in that matter 
of orthography. To think that throughout those fatal letters 
she had spelled affection with one /, and rapture with sh, in- 
stead of t. Orthography is such an arbitrary thing; has neither 
rhyme nor reason in it, Sarah thought, submitting her old lax 
notions to the rigid schooling of the dictionary. 

And now came the wedding-day. She was to be married at 
St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, his lordship's house being in that par- 
ish. The wedding was to be a very quiet ceremonial. His lord- 
ship’s mother, a dowager of seventy years of age, and of great 
dignity, of whom Sarah lived in awe, was to be the only relative 
present on the bridegroom’s side. His best man was an old 
friend. On Sarah’s side there were the four sisters, and an oafish 
brother. The major was to give his daughter away. The eldest 
of her sister’s was to be bridemaid. 

After the wedding, bride and bridegroom were to step into a 
traveling carriage, and drive off as fast as four fine horses could 
take them to Tunbridge Wells, where they were to spend the 
honeymoon at the dowager’s secluded villa, near Leeds Castle. 
It was said to be one of the prettiest seats in Kent, on a small 
scale — gardens, fountains, shrubberies, all perfection. It had 
been the lady’s delight in her thirty years of widowhood to 
create and beautify the grounds and gardens. 

“ We shall be vastly quiet there, Sally,” said his lordship, when 
he was describing the beauties of the place. “ I hope you will 
not get tired of me.” 

“ Tired of you!” She looked up at him with worshiping eyes 
— how strangely different from that despairing look with which 
she had once entreated him to delay their marriage! 

He felt ineffably proud of his conquest. He had told himself 
that he could win her, had sworn to himself to make her his in 
heart and soul before the law bound her to him. 

“When we are very sick of each other we can go to the 
rooms or the Pantiles to see the modish people,” he said, smiling 
at her. 

“ I would rather stay at home and hear you read to me,” she 
answered, gravely. “ Think how much I have to learn before I 
shall be fit to be your wife.” 

“ I think you have learned the only lesson I shall ever care 
about teaching you,” he said. 

“ How do you mean ?” 

“ I think you have learned to love me, Sarah. That’s the only 
wisdom I ask of you.” 

“ Yes, I have learned that with all my heart. Yet when you 
first came to this house I almost hated you.” 

“ That was because you loved another. Nay” — as Sarah tried 
to speak— “ neither deny it nor confess it, my dear. I want to 
/earn nothing about the past. I am liappy in the present, and, 
confident about the future.” 

Sarah changed from red to pale and was silent^ 


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THE LITTLE WOMAN IN BLACK. 


57 


How could she speak of those accursed letters after this? 
How could she ever let him look into the depths of her past 
folly? 

She was as white as sculptured marble next morning — as white 
as her ostrich feathers, but a bride has a privileged pallor. No- 
body wondered at Sarah’s colorless cheeks. 

“ You look frightened, my dear,” said the outspoken dowager 
as she |jissed her in the church. “ I hope you don’t repent what 
you are doing.” 

“ No, madam. I love your son with all my heart, and am 
proud with all my heart of his love.” 

Then the organ played a psalm, and the little procession went 
up to the altar rails, or the rails which defended that table which 
should have been an altar. 

Very clear and firm and full were Sarah’s accents as she gave 
the responses that made her George, Lord Bellenden’s wife. 

“ There is some advantage in having been taught to speak,” 
thought the dowager, as she heard those rich, round tones. 

Anon came the business in the vestry? The old major was 
weeping for very pride that his daughter was now one of the 
nobility. Sarah signed herself Sarah Pawlett for the last time 
in her life, kissed her husband, and went out of the church 
leaning on his arm, happy since he was verily hers now, and yet 
painfully expectant. 

So far there had been no sign of the little woman in black. 
Sarah had looked about the church expecting to see her in the 
corner of a pew, or lurking behind a pillar: but she had descried 
the pinched little face nowhere. “ How could I suppose that 
she would keep her promise?” thought Sarah, despairingly; 
“ she will treasure those letters as a weapon to use against me 
whenever the fit takes her.” 

But in the church porch the little woman in black pressed 
forward to speak to the bride, with a small brown-paper parcel, 
very neatly packed, in her hand. 

“ Mr. Jones, the glover, was^anxious that you should have this 
ere you started, my lady,” she said. “ He could not execute 
your order sooner.” 

“Give it to one of my servants, madam,” said his lordship, 
but Sarah snatched the parcel. 

“ I thank you, madam, from the bottom of my heart,” she 
murmured, with an earnest look, while her bridegroom was giv- 
ing an order to one of the outriders who were to escort them to 
Tunbridge Wells. 

Another minute, and she was in the chariot, sitting by her 
husband’s side, the brown-paper parcel in her lap. 

“ Shall we open it and see what the gloves are like, which 
the man sends you at the eleventh hour ?” asked Lord Bellenden. 

“No,” she said, “I know all about them; I want to talk to 
you.” 

So they talked, and the parcel was not opened, and the streets 
and the bridge, and the long suburban road, which in those days 
so soon became rustic, fleeted by them like a dream that is 


W. C. DUNN 


BOOK and PAPER 

rOMPOSITION 

^ AND 

JhLFXTROTYPING. 


POBLISHER OF THE CRITERION LIBRARY, 


NEW MATERIAL, 

FINE WORKMANSHIP, 

BEST FACILITIES. 


24 and 26 VANDEWATER ST., 


NEW YORK. 


THE LITTLE WOMAN IN BLACK. 


20 


dreamed, a happy vision of sunlight and glancing leaves, white 
houses, cottage gardens — now and then a carriage, now and then 
a cart — and on to the woods and pastures, orchards and hop- 
gardens of Kent. 

Before the bride dressed for dinner she burned every one of 
those foolish letters — burned them without reading a line of any 
of them, 

“ If I were to read them I should hate myself too much for my 
silliness in ever having written such trash,” she said to herself, 
as she flung them into the fire and thrust them down among the 
blazing coals, and held them there with the poker till not a ves- 
tige of that romantic bosh remained. 

Three days afterward Lady Bellenden received a prim little let- 
ter with the London post-mark, written in a niggling hand, and 
beautifully spelled: 

“Honored Madam, — When we were talking together that 
night you asked me if I had a price for your letters, and I said 
perhaps I had. 

“ You are now Lady Bellenden. You will be a leader of fash- 
ion before long, if you play your cards cleverly. Ask me to your 
parties. I have long languished for modish society. The loss of 
that is a greater deprivation to me than any of the troubles of 
my married life — wretched as that is. Ask me to all your par- 
ties, I shall not disgrace you. I know how to behave in com- 
pany, and I shall always come in a chair. 

“ God bless you. I am very glad you are happily married, and 
have escaped that scoundrel, my husband. Be sure you send me 
a card for your first rout.” 

* * * * * * * 

Lady Bellenden readily complied with this request, and Mrs. 
Edward Langley of Castle Street, Leicester Square, received a 
card for her ladyship’s first reception, and with the card a par- 
cel of black Genoa velvet for a gown, and Spanish lace to trim 
the same. The little woman looked to advantage in her velvet 
gown, and mingled with the throng of English and foreign no- 
bility. men about town, wits and authors, without attracting 
any adverse criticism. But as the years went by, the little 
woman in black became as familiar an object in Lady Bellen- 
den’s drawing-room as the looking-glasses which her ladyship 
had brought from Venice, or the statues which his lordship 
had brought from Rome. She was very harmless; she listened 
to the music, and looked on at the dancing, and never obtruded 
herself upon anybody’s attention. But it was observed that 
Ladv Bellenden was always particularly kind to her, and by 
and “by, when there came a bevy of sons and daughters, the 
little woman in black acquired the position of a maiden aunt, 
or a godmother, among these young people, and spent the 
greater portion of her life with the Bellendens either in town or 
country. 


R. H. DEMILL, 

LIVERY STABLE 


Horses kept on Livery and Boarded by the Day, Week or Month. 

I^COACHES AT ALL HOURS. 

386 BERRY STREET, 

Bet, Broalway & Somii 8tli Street, Brooklyn, e. b. 

A. P. AVERY, 

INSURANCE. 

135 BROADWAY, New York, and 

68 BROADWAY, Brooklyn, N. Y. 


REPRESENTING 

Niagara Fire Iiis, Co,, Norwicli Union Fire Ins. Soc., 
Hartford Fire Ins, Co,, Queen Insnranee Co,, 

Lloyd’s Plate Stass Insnranee Co. 


THE LITTLE WOMAN IN BLACK. 


31 

Ned Langley had vanished from the stage of the world long 
ere this, having dropped into disrepute as an actor in conse- 
quence of his intemperate habits. 

He died in a sponging-house, very suddenly, struck down by 
cerebral apoplexy, aH^^r a midnight drinking bout. Most people 
had heard the little woman in black spoken of as Mrs. Langley; 
but very few people knew that she was the widow of handsome 
Ned Langley, the famous comedian. 


[THE END.] 




• J 



p 



p 



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FRENCH and ITALIAN 

ICE CREAM AND SORBETS 


will be found equal, if not superior, in quality and flavor, to 
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ALL FENCH AM ITALIAN ICE CEAM AM WATER ICES 

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Pud’g Glace a la Nesselrode 1.00 

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O 

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